MOC rallies past Shaw

MOUNT OLIVE -- Mount Olive College has owned Shaw University in baseball over the past three seasons.

Wednesday wasn't one of those days.

The No.14-ranked Trojans tacked on five late runs to pull away for a 8-3, non-conference victory at Scarborough Field.

Mount Olive (6-2 overall) defeated Shaw by a combined score of 68-6 in the previous three meetings. The Trojans benefited from five Bears' errors on Wednesday, four of which came in the final four innings.

"I'm very disappointed in our club," said Mount Olive head coach Carl Lancaster. "I don't care who you're playing, you always do your best. We didn't take our best game out there. You always respect your opponent.

"That was a bad game all the way around for us. Their defense gave us the ballgame."

Rakeem Lewis' two-out RBI, Carlos Aponte's single and a Mount Olive error tied the game at 3-3 in the top of the fourth inning.

The score remained tied until the sixth inning when Greene Central alum Will Bynum scored on a stolen base and a Bears' error to put the Trojans in front 4-3.

Mike Knox scored on a Shaw error and Dan Hayduk tacked on an RBI double in the home half of the seventh to give Mount Olive a 6-3 advantage. Lee Murray added an RBI groundout, and the Trojans picked up another run on Bynum's single and a Bears' error.

Hayduk finished with two hits and two RBI, while catcher Nick Gaeta had two hits.

Mount Olive starting pitcher Jeremy Hall worked six innings and surrendered three runs (two earned) on seven hits with seven strikeouts and no walks.

Shaw (3-3) loaded the bases with nobody out in the top of the seventh inning against Trojans' reliever Sheldon Johnson. Freshman Josh Frederick used a strikeout and an inning-ending double play to extinguish the rally. Frederick recorded five strikeouts and surrendered one hit with no walks in three innings of work to earn the save.

"Josh did a great job," said Lancaster. "He got the strikeout and the double play and from then on we were on. We should have never been in that position, either."

The Trojans play host to Alderson-Broaddus (W. Va.) in a non-conference doubleheader, which begins at noon Saturday.